


a thing we can't deny

by tremontaine



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Crack, Dirty Talk, F/M, Fluff, Mutual Pining, Press and Tabloids, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 22:21:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6772585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tremontaine/pseuds/tremontaine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I don’t mean it would hold up in a court of law,” said Rosenthal. “But that’s the problem, isn’t it. We can’t easily prove the documents are inauthentic, and there are a quite a few interesting legal points surrounding, you know, the question of whether or not either of you were capable of consent in legal terms, or the conflict between the different civil statuses of the different legal identities of the same natural person in the case of amnesia and a declaration of death; obviously if the documents are authentic there’s a strong argument to be made here that Hydra was committing identity fraud, but basically, yeah, unless you want to take it to court and put your entire lives under scrutiny, you’re gonna have to put up with Buzzfeed telling everyone you’re married.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	a thing we can't deny

 

The silence after Rosenthal had finished could only be described as ringing. After a second or three, it was broken by the sound of Steve strangling a laugh and choking on it.

Bucky kicked him under the table. Sam put his head in his hands; even Clint was grinning.

“Are you sure it’s legal?” said Natasha.

“I don’t mean it would hold up in a court of law,” said Rosenthal. “But that’s the problem, isn’t it. We can’t easily prove the documents are inauthentic, and there are a quite a few interesting legal points surrounding, you know, the question of whether or not either of you were capable of consent in legal terms, or the conflict between the different civil statuses of the different legal identities of the same natural person in the case of amnesia and a declaration of death; obviously if the documents _are_ authentic there’s a strong argument to be made here that Hydra was committing identity fraud, but basically, yeah, unless you want to take it to court and put your entire lives under scrutiny, you’re gonna have to put up with Buzzfeed telling everyone you’re married.”

“But we’re _not_ ,” said Bucky, exasperated. God, his mother was rolling in her grave. The moment the news channels had started running the story his phone had started ringing off the hook as all his nieces and nephews wanted to know why he hadn’t told them about his wife; there were at least six separate messages from Becca which all consisted of her trying to start a sentence and then collapsing into cackles, Emmy had told Louise to tell Jamie to tell Rikki to tell him when she saw him on Friday that he was a disgrace, Sarah Jane had informed him sagely that that Romanov girl was too good for him, which was undisputed and indeed indisputable, and Steve had not looked so delighted with himself – even though the bastard hadn’t actually done anything, for once – since Joey O’Sullivan’s twelfth birthday party, when Bucky had socked the host in the jaw and rubbed cake in his face for putting beetles down the back of Becca’s dress.

“I know,” said Rosenthal. Even _she_ looked vaguely amused. Was that allowed, in lawyers? “And I’m sure that neither of you are going to start making legal claims on each other now. But I’m equally sure that you don’t want the publicity that’ll follow if you try and take this to court over anything.”

“Definitely not,” Natasha said. “Is there anything else we can do?”

“He’s given you more than enough grounds for divorce,” said Steve into his coffee cup and scooted his chair back from the table before Bucky could kick him again.

“Steve, be quiet,” Natasha said. “Bernie…”

“I’m sorry,” said Rosenthal. “But I can’t snap my fingers and make this go away without making it worse first.”

Bucky groaned. Natasha heaved a sigh. Steve made another strangled noise and then gave up and started laughing.

+++

“It’s absolutely unbelievable,” said Natasha.

“I know. I mean it must be fake. They’d have wiped the identities – they’d never have put anything on paper like that in the first place.”

“They would never have sent us on that kind of mission.” Natasha tucked her feet underneath her and reached for the bottle again; she had invited him over to her apartment after the meeting had broken up in disarray and howls of laughter from all their so-called friends, and they had been drinking Asgardian booze and smoking on her tiny balcony ever since. The ashtray was overflowing, and Bucky had not been this drunk since 1942 – since before Azzano, in other words.

“I know,” he said. Then he added, “That’s what’s really pissing you off, isn’t it? The inaccuracy.”

“No of course not. I mean yeah. Kind of, yeah.”

Bucky frowned into his glass in gloomy disgust. “I can’t believe I’m offended on Karpov’s behalf.”

Natasha started laughing helplessly.

“It’s just so disgustingly brainless,” he said. “And – and _modern_.”

“You never did deal well with incompetence.” She sounded fond.

“No more than you, _lisichka_.”

She sighed, her cheek leaning on her hand, swirling her glass and shaking her head. “All these years later your accent’s still atrocious.”

Bucky put his glass down on the little table to lean back in his chair and laugh and laugh. Natasha lit up again, the smoke curling upwards in the evening air, sighing. He could hear the crackle of the paper of her cigarette burning when she took a drag.

“Sometimes I can’t get over how different everything smells now nobody smokes anymore,” he said suddenly.

She looked surprised; then she nodded. “Steve said that to me once.”

“When did you start?”

“After I got out. It was at SHIELD, someone offered me one on a mission one day, and I just thought, why not.” Natasha laughed. “I hardly ever do, to be honest. But at the time, it was like… I’m free to ruin my health any way I choose. It felt good.”

“I know,” Bucky said. “I know what you mean. I’m not _obligated_ to be in perfect working order any more.” Once, very soon after DC, he’d proved that to himself by pulling a number of stunts that should have ended in serious injuries, not the least of which being the way he’d cut his right arm to ribbons and watched the blood drip down his fingers in fascination, waiting for a reprimand that never came… But it had only been pain, and he had been through enough of that.

“Exactly.” She sighed. “And now look where we are. What a mess to be in.” Pensive and regretful. Her hair fell around her face in soft waves, much as it had when they had first known each other, and her lovely eyes were looking far away, past him, through him.

Bucky sighed too. “If you wanted,” he said quietly, dragging the words out of his chest, “I could go – explain.”

Natasha stared.

“To the guy you’re dating? That we’re not.” He waved his hand, and then took another cigarette himself.

“Who – who told you there was a guy?” Too quick, and too incredulous.

“Baby girl,” he said, “I’ve known you for years. You haven’t tinted your hair in six months and you keep smiling at people; half of HQ thinks you’re plotting a coup d’état. It’s in your shoulders, how you walk… you’re happy.”

“And you think a guy made me that way.” But she couldn’t or wouldn’t look at him. His chest was hollow, aching. Married to her? He had never given it a second thought. Being with her again; telling her – knowing that she –

But they weren’t children anymore. He was a mess who couldn’t give her half of what she deserved, for whom the idea of being in a relationship sounded, right now, a little like walking into the nearest Hydra base and handing himself back in for re-programming, and she had had years without him; it was enough of a miracle that they were friends.

“I’m just saying,” he said. “I’ll do whatever you want me to do.” I’ll do whatever makes you happy.

Natasha stubbed her cigarette out and reached for the bottle again. “Don’t say that.” She poured for them both, the bottleneck clanking on the glasses, solemn for a few moments. Then she looked up at him at last and smiled. “But thanks for offering.”

“You’re welcome.” They toasted each other, and drank.

+++

“No, this is fantastic,” said Clint. “I really appreciate it that after all these years you’re finally coming to me for advice about boys.”

“I’m not here for advice,” Natasha said, throwing her hands up. “I’m here because I’m mad at him and I need to tell someone. I mean how dare he? _I’m_ with someone, who does he think he’s kidding, just come out and tell me he’s not interested and is probably fucking someone else.”

“Please don’t,” said Clint, looking pained. “I’ll only have to repeat it all to Laura and she’ll call you up this evening after the kids are in bed and laugh at you.”

“Ugh.” Natasha folded her arms on his desk and dropped her forehead onto them. “You’re happy, Nat, you haven’t changed your hair in six months. Asshole.”

“That’s cause he told you he liked it like this,” Clint said sagely.

“No it _isn’t_ ,” Natasha said, but not even she believed that.

+++

“I just don’t think there _is_ a guy,” said Steve.

“You don’t think at all,” said Bucky.

“Look, either you want my advice or not,” said Steve.

Probably Bucky was the only person left in the world who could tell the difference between Steve being solemn and Steve keeping his face still so he didn’t burst out laughing. Guess which one was going on now.

“Steve,” said Bucky, very patiently, “the day I come to your dumb ass for advice about women is the day I go certifiably and irrefutably _senile_ and you can take me out behind the bike sheds and shoot me, OK?”

Steve handed him another beer and said, rather too innocently, “What did the girls say, then?”

+++

Two weeks later the media were still blaring the story on every front page. Every second James and Natasha had ever spent within a mile of each other was being gleefully dissected; there were whole articles devoted to the type of couples therapy they certainly needed after what had happened to them; six women had come forward claiming to have secretly raised their love child for them; one obnoxious “sex therapist” woman was on all the breakfast shows on the TV talking about their supposed intimacy issues; everyone in the world wanted an interview, and Natasha wanted to scream, all day, every day, and she didn’t quite know why.

Usually this sort of thing didn’t bother her. Every now and then the infamous femme fatale business would be trotted out; she killed all her marks in the middle of sex, or something something evil Bond girl, or someone would sell a story to some rag that detailed her stormy, passionate, non-existent night with him, or there would be something about her upcoming any day now engagement, usually to Steve – Captain America being the only man in the world good and pure enough to make the Great Whore of Babylon fall in love. Natasha saw no point in drawing more attention by engaging with it, so she tended to smile and say nothing, no matter what the rumour was, but this marriage business had officially gotten under her skin.

_Because it’s important to me_ , she thought as she came up the subway steps; the newsstand was bedecked with tabloids flashing photos of her and James. There, last month, standing in the sunshine drinking coffee with him just outside HQ. There, years ago, him strolling through DC with a grenade launcher on his shoulder. There, at Christmas, her saying goodbye to him and Steve, again just outside of HQ, before she’d gone home with Clint, her hand on James’ upper arm.

She gave herself a shake and made herself move on, following the flow of people down the block in the general direction of the grocery store, and then home. It was important: it was important that he was OK, that this didn’t blow up into something that could hurt him, it was important that it didn’t – that –

It cut deep because dammit, the whole world thought she was fucking the man she loved and she wasn’t, because he didn’t want her anymore. All of a sudden she skidded to a halt on the sidewalk, did an about-face, dodged two pushchairs and a giant grocery bag, and marched two blocks back the way she’d come to her favourite hairdressers, where Melanie cut it into a bob for her and ran blonde highlights through the rest so that it was barely darker than Pepper’s.

+++

The next day James was in the elevator when she arrived at HQ with a sheaf of files in his hands. He looked up and smiled when he saw her, that sweet wide smile that Natasha was fairly sure only a handful of people in this day and age had ever seen on his face. Herself; Steve; maybe Sam…

Presumably the girl he was fucking. Natasha had an urge to hunt her down and yank her intestines out which she firmly suppressed. If he was happy she was happy. If he was happy she was happy.

“Morning,” she said.

“You’re –”

“Oh, all the way up.” He pressed the button for her; he was getting out three floors below her. “Thanks.”

“Course. Hey,” he added, as the doors slid open on his floor, “you look great, by the way.”

“Huh?” Natasha blinked.

“Your hair. It looks great.”

He was gone before she could say anything, which was probably for the best. Natasha stomped her foot at the elevator wall in sheer naked fury. Was there nothing she could do to stop him being so – so – so himself. She sighed. It was nothing, it was nothing. The man gave out compliments as if they were going out of fashion. He liked people. Natasha had no understanding for or patience with that nonsense. People were dumb, panicky – what movie was that from? She couldn’t remember. Anyway. When the elevator stopped she marched down the hall into Rosenthal’s office; Steve was with her, they were having coffee and talking, and both of them looked up when Natasha knocked.

“Hey,” said Steve, and couldn’t suppress a grin.

“So help me Rogers I will sell all your underwear on ebay to creepy Captain America fanboys if you don’t quit gloating,” Natasha said.

Steve snapped his mouth shut and hiked on a terribly earnest expression. “Ma’am, yes, ma’am.”

Rosenthal cleared her throat.

“Sorry,” said Natasha. “I just – Bernie – is there really nothing…?”

Steve suddenly looked worried.

“Well,” said Rosenthal, and came around the desk to perch on the edge next to Steve’s chair. “The thing is…”

Natasha sighed.

“Hear me out. The thing is, everybody loves a tragic star-crossed romance. You don’t need to be a PR person to see that. And according to Tally…”

Natasha held up her hand. She leaned against the wall beside Rosenthal’s bookcase and crossed her arms, looking at them: Rosenthal, professional and calm in her smart suit, Steve trying to hide his worry, his hands lax on his thighs in a slightly forced pose.

“It’s helping James,” she said. Of course it was. Tragic star-crossed lovers reunited, like the sequel to _Romeo and Juliet_. It was one thing to tell people calmly and officially about brainwashing and mens rea and pardons; it was another to have the entire business so beautifully packaged in a story like this.

“I’m not asking you to pretend anything,” said Steve. “I’m just asking you to – to –”

“To let them print whatever they want,” Natasha said. She rubbed her hand over her face, sighing. “Of course.”

Rosenthal said, “Are you sure? It’s been two weeks. If it’s unbearable, there are steps…”

“But as you already so rightly pointed out, sooner or later those steps will involve standing up in court and giving details of – of everything.”

“In all likelihood, yes,” said Rosenthal. “But there are things like settlements, and if we made enough noise about national security…”

“Publicity, publicity, publicity,” Natasha said. “Why won’t they take it to court? Because it’s true. And – hell. No matter how we turn, this is going to end badly for us, isn’t it.”

“It has the potential to get very nasty, yes.”

Silence. Natasha stared unseeing at the floor for long moment. If it was just her – but if it was just her it probably wouldn’t be bothering her this much. It reflected on the Avengers as a whole: not directly, but in the sense that if the tabloids were reduced to running falsified fluff stories about Natasha’s non-existent love life that at least meant that they weren’t running stories about how Steve and Tony were perpetually on the verge of killing each other. And this was helping James. He’d fought so hard and for so long to come back to himself, to find a place to stand, after everyone, even Natasha herself, had as good as told him he would never make it. If people saw him differently because of this, if they found it easier to accept him, Natasha would – would probably invent a baby and a puppy and a white-picketed house in the suburbs and give long and tearful interviews about how tragic it had all been and how grateful she was to have him back. (The worst thing was, it would be the truth.) She owed him that, after she’d given up on him so ruthlessly.

“Then I’ll grit my teeth and bear it,” she said.

“Thank you,” Steve said quietly.

+++

Bucky didn’t usually pay much attention to either the TV or the tabloids – he’d found, during his recovery, that he was a lot happier that way – but it was nearly impossible to avoid this, not least because people kept asking him about it. Every press conference managed to get in a question about it; every statement about anything given from Avengers HQ was greeted with a wail of _why aren’t they talking about what we want them to talk about_ , which, of course, was Bucky and Natasha.

Natasha laughed it off as if she had experience in such things, and when Bucky got a little curious one day despite his better judgement and went looking, it soon became clear why. Within five minutes he’d developed an irrational hatred of _Goldeneye_ , despite not having seen it yet, and Jesus wept, it was one thing to know, in an abstract kind of way, that so-called newspapers talked about women like that in this day and age, and another one to see it directed at someone he – well.

But she never talked about it, and wouldn’t appreciate him bringing it up, so he took out his feelings on Steve and any other takers in the gym for a few hours, and then spent the rest of the day hammering out a training regimen that made even Barton, experienced as he was, go slightly pale when he got a look at it the next day in the break room.

“Are you serious?” he said.

“I’m always serious,” said Bucky. “Hydra burnt my sense of humour right out of me.” He met Barton’s amused, knowing gaze without twitching.

“Sadist,” Barton said. “You really think…?”

Bucky glanced down at his coffee. “You’re good now,” he said. “I can make you the best.”

Barton pursed his lips. “We,” he said. “We and us, Barnes.” He rapped his knuckles on the table-top while Bucky glanced away, not sure if he was pleased or embarrassed or reluctant. Barton didn’t say anything else, but when the others came in he complained about the regimen volubly, at length, and in tones which suggested it was all a done deal already, which led to everyone else kind of shrugging and going along with it – albeit in horror.

Everyone, that was, except for Natasha, who took one look at it and sniggered.

“You’re excused,” said Bucky.

“But I –”

“I don’t need you hanging around making everybody feel inferior.”

“What do you want me to do instead, take up embroidery?”

“Will it make your stitches neater? Because I have these scars –” he shot his right wrist out of his sleeve and gestured, and Natasha threw a half-eaten biscuit at him.

“You wanna talk about Odessa? Because we can talk about Odessa.”

“As long as you keep your pretty nose out of this” – Bucky waved the papers at her – “I will sit here and smile and read you the phone book if you want me to, _lisichka_.”

Natasha glared at him. Bucky bit the inside of his cheek and stayed firm. There was just no _point_ sometimes. She’d breeze right through it and make terrible jokes about their past and needle everyone else for failing tests she herself had passed years before she’d ever laid eyes on the Winter Soldier. The woman had no sense of – of decorum. She never had had. But they both swung round to glare at Barton in unison when he swung his feet up onto the table and said lazily, “Is anyone else thinking maybe Buzzfeed has a point?”

+++

The worst, the absolute _worst_ moment of the entire fiasco was when some dreadful woman in a red trenchcoat ambushed them with a cameraman and a microphone just outside of everyone’s favourite lunch deli. It was fun to sit around and watch James and Sam circle each other and pretend they weren’t really friends, and Natasha and Steve were still so pre-occupied with the floor show that they didn’t notice the reporter until she was practically standing on Natasha’s feet, the nasty little –

“Agent Romanov, are the rumours true?”

“I really couldn’t say,” Natasha said sweetly, “I haven’t heard them all.”

“Oh come on. You don’t feel your relationship with a man who’s tried to kill you is setting a bad example for women who have been mistreated –”

James took a step back, his face very white. The reporter whirled on him like a striking snake. “And I’m sure that kind of thing was normal enough in the Forties,” heavy on the sarcasm, and just like that Natasha’s patience snapped like a rubber band stretched too far.

“I really, really hate you,” she said, catching the woman’s wrist and pushing the microphone out of her face, shoving her back several steps and off the sidewalk into the street. “If there’s anyone on earth who knows what he’s been through, it’s me. Now _get out of here_.” She was so angry she was practically vibrating with it. How dared the woman act like it was in any way comparable to some scumbag who chose to hurt his girlfriend, who had been _able_ to choose; how dared she insinuate that when he had been the only good thing she’d had in that place, the only human touch, the only bit of kindness and warmth, long before they’d ever even kissed? If the woman shoved that microphone back in her face Natasha would hit her, she really would. “You’re nothing but a vulture, and no woman who’s ever been hit by anyone deserves you for a spokesperson –”

This, bless him, was where Steve stepped in, because Natasha was incandescent with anger and not about to stop.

“Enough,” he said. “Enough. Ma’am, if you want a statement, ask through the usual channels. If not, leave it alone. We’re leaving. Come on.”

Very few people failed to be impressed by Steve’s Captain-America-Disapproves-Of-You look. The reporter was not one of them.

+++

Mistreated. Well that was one way of putting it, and it certainly put a spin on what Bucky had done that he had never thought of before. She’d been a soldier, an enemy in his way; he remembered that mindset very clearly, the blankness that laid itself over his thoughts, the way the world had gone grey and dull, people registering in categories, _civilian, target, hindrance_ , their faces meaningless, their cries and their pleas and even their attempts to defend themselves pointless no matter how he screamed at himself to stop. Mistreated. Other kids’ mothers had been hit sometimes, Bucky knew that. Snatches of half-heard conversations between his parents had given him suspicions about Joe Rogers that he would take to his grave… But while Bucky himself had gotten the occasional boxed ears from his old man, he knew for a fact that George Barnes had never, would never, raise a hand to his wife and daughters. Bucky had taught his sisters how to throw a punch; as a Sergeant any guy under his watch that he caught hurting, or was told had hurt, his sweetheart or a working girl suffered for it to the best of Bucky’s abilities to make it so, and everyone had known it.

Mistreated. Well. The media made a thing of it for a few days in an unprecedented display of what Natasha called concern-trolling, but it soon became clear that the tragic romance sold a lot better; probably, as Rosenthal rather grimly pointed out, because both Bucky and Natasha were good-looking and doing their best to save the world on a semi-regular basis. It had helped, too, that Natasha had defended him so angrily…

But the ripple of unease remained; the – the fear, not to put too fine a point on it. Was being a wife-beater worse than being a mass murderer? It seemed a stupid distinction. But it was much closer to home, somehow. He couldn’t imagine what his parents would have made of the Winter Soldier. He wasn’t sure his sisters had really, properly understood what he was now, what he had been and done. But he knew damn well what Mam and Da would have done if they’d ever learnt he’d struck his wife.

Hypothetical wife. Fictitious. It wasn’t a real marriage. They were just friends.

His mother really was rolling in her grave, wasn’t she.

+++

She’d defended him. That warmed something in his chest whenever he thought of it, a hot little nugget of comfort. Natasha had defended him. The ridiculous girl wouldn’t do it for herself, oh no, but him – Bucky shook his head at himself. But it made him smile just the same; and determined not to let her down, too.

+++

At some point even the villains of the week had started asking about it. Bucky was starting to think he’d pay good money to be alone on the planet if it would spare him this.

“It’s just so _romantic_ ,” said the girl, shaking her cuffed hands in front of her and frowning when Stark’s power dampers worked perfectly. “Like, murder romance!”

“What,” said Bucky, staring. Wanda had flung the kid pretty far across the square; it must be a concussion.

“ _Murder spouses_ ,” the kid said, and did a jig of glee when Natasha started coming over to them. Bucky was still shaking his head in disgust when they had bundled the kid into the back of the van and shut the doors.

“What was that?” Nat asked.

“Our tragic fictitious love has fans,” said Bucky. “Really creepy fans. Are you OK?” She’d flinched, imperceptible to anyone else, probably, and now she lifted a hand to her neck.

“Yeah, just sore. I went down harder than I thought.”

“Here,” he said, and batted her fingers away gently so he could dig his own into the knots in her muscles. Hot soft skin and fragile bones he could break with just the right grip, and so much strength in her. Natasha sighed, a low drawn out little noise, and let her head fall forwards, her chin on her chest.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Of course.” This had been the only way they had been able to touch each other: checking for injuries, ensuring full functionality of the asset. If she’d sprained something, or pulled a muscle… but she hadn’t; he was touching her because he wanted to and because she let him. Pathetic. But she really was sore, and if his touch made it better he would give her it.

And of course the next day that photo was all over the tabloids at the newsstands he passed: Natasha quiescent beside him, her hair hanging around her face, his hand on the back of her neck… it had been taken from behind, so you couldn’t see his expression, which, on the one hand, no actual record of his idiot love-struck face for her to see and feel pity for; on the other hand, without it, there was something unsettling, even threatening, about it, the slender girl with the brainwashed unstoppable assassin’s hand heavy on the back of her neck. Mistreated. It made his stomach turn over.

God, he was overthinking this. What had he used to do, back Then, to get his head straight and not obsess over things?

“Read,” said Sarah Jane. “You were always reading, especially when I wanted you for something, like homework.”

“You used to help Dad in the shop,” said Emmy. “It was always funny to watch you put your talking-to-customers face on. When I was little you used to say it was an invisible mask, and you’d get one for me for my birthday if I behaved myself.”

“I remember when you taught me to dance,” said Becca, and then she held up her knitting and frowned at it fiercely. “Damn, I dropped another stitch.”

“You hate knitting,” said Bucky, sprawled in the armchair opposite her and frowning up at the ceiling.

“I know,” said Becca. “Rikki bet me ten dollars I couldn’t do it. My own granddaughter. Cheek.”

Bucky started laughing.

“Go ask some pretty girl out and take her dancing,” said Becca. “That’ll make you feel better.”

Hmm. That had possibilities. Bucky liked modern music, on the whole, and he liked the openness and total lack of inhibitions with which people enjoyed it; the problem was in the asking someone to go out with him. He had no intention of actually dating anyone, even casually, and he definitely had no intention of going with Steve, who would prop up a wall and sulk into his beer all night. Sam? Bucky didn’t dislike Sam, exactly, but the chances were high that he and Steve had exactly the same attitude to parties. They were both the type who only let themselves have fun when they thought it was helping someone else. Barton was an actual adult, so that was right out; same for Scott, though he pretended otherwise. If Bucky was going out, he was going _all_ out. (Christ, he missed his friends.) Wanda? She could be as tense as Bucky himself sometimes; it would do her good to get out and have some fun. He couldn’t picture himself going out with Sharon or Hill, though he knew that Hill and Steve were friends. Or he could go alone, and see what happened… but that sounded like a waste.

He was still mulling it over the next day, and checking the internet for good places to go, when he got to HQ and hit the gym. Wanda was already there, and Bucky paused in the doorway for a second to watch her attack a punching bag rather viciously. There was tension in her shoulders and her stance was too stiff; she wasn’t concentrating properly. That made up his mind for him.

“Hey.” He marched over and steadied the bag for her, and she got an excellent shot in before she straightened up, surprised to see him. “Nice move. Hey, you wanna come out this evening?”

Wanda wiped the sweat off her forehead, blinking. “Out?”

Bucky smiled. “I need to get out of here and have some fun, and you look like you’re in the same mood.”

“I don’t think I know what your idea of fun even is,” said Wanda, eyes narrowed suspiciously. She was a smart kid.

“Neither do I anymore,” Bucky said with much more cheer than truth. “Come on, teach me your 21st century ways, grasshopper.”

Wanda rolled her eyes. Then she said, “I’ve never really been clubbing or anything either.”

“Perfect,” said Bucky. “We’ll go on an embarrassing journey of discovery together.”

That made her laugh. Score!

+++

“Wanda’s wearing sunglasses,” Natasha said.

“Hmm?” Steve looked up.

“In the lobby,” she added.

“Oh,” he said, glancing over the walkway railing to the lobby; it took him a second to spot Wanda, probably because of the sunglasses. And the man’s sweater she’d flung on over her dress. And the wet hair. Wanda had her own style, and it wasn’t Natasha’s, but she was never usually dishevelled outside of a fight. “It’s… bright down there?”

“She’s been out all night,” Natasha said approvingly. Wanda needed to get out more. “Well done, kid, excellent move. I hope the lucky guy appreciates –”

But there, of course, she had to stop, because the lucky guy was apparently James, slouching through the doors wearing sunglasses of his own – actually Wanda’s were probably his too, and her sweater certainly was – and carrying a coffee cup in either hand; he passed one to her and she toasted him with it and then, in apparently companionable silence, they made their way, slightly unsteadily, up the stairs to join Steve and Natasha in waiting for the elevator.

Someone had sunk a fishhook into Natasha’s chest and pulled all her major organs out at once. It was very uncomfortable.

“Morning,” Steve said.

Wanda flinched. James glared.

“Feeling a little delicate?” Steve was grinning.

“A little,” said James. “In retrospect, the vodka whatever-they-weres were a mistake.”

“I’m not sure I knew what was in them,” said Wanda. “Oh my god.”

“Not sure I did,” said James. “Christ. Never drink that stuff at four in the morning.”

“It’s nine thirty,” said Steve. “Are you still drunk? You’re both still drunk. Barnes, the last time you did this we were seventeen.” He glared.

“And now I’m a brainwashed assassin with a dark and tragic past,” said James. “Same difference, really.”

Wanda was laughing into her coffee cup. “Exactly the same!”

“ _Some people_ collected ten different guys’ phone numbers last night,” he added.

Wanda went bright red. “Nine.”

“Details.”

“You might have let me go home with the blonde one. He was lovely.”

“It’s less than six hours later and you don’t remember his name, witch. You’re not dating him until I’ve run a background check.”

And all of a sudden Natasha’s internal organs were replaced and she could breathe again. “Absolutely not,” she said, and dug her elbow into Wanda’s side. “But, you know, having said that, _niiiiice_.”

Wanda was still blushing furiously. “Bucky bet me fifty dollars I couldn’t get two,” she said.

“What an asshole,” Natasha said, glaring at him over her head.

“Some people need a kick in the pants to do what’s good for ‘em,” said James solemnly.

“Hypocrite!” said Steve, and the elevator arrived before anyone could ask what that was about.

+++

Well that was a relief. No matter who the girl was, at least Natasha didn’t have to see her every day… or if she did she didn’t want to find out. And of course he _would_ be that way with Wanda: fond, funny, a little patronising, overly protective. They were both dark-haired and pale with light eyes: Natasha suspected very much that Wanda bore at least a passing resemblance to James’ sisters. He knew about Pietro, too. It made perfect sense. She’d talked herself into some semblance of rationality by lunchtime, but then she saw him talking to Rosenthal in the mess and laughing, and –

This was pathetic. Natasha fetched herself lunch, her mouth tight, and wended her way through the tables to join them; Rosenthal was just leaving. What was wrong with her? Was this really the kind of person that she was – jealous and angry? If he was happy she was happy. New mantra. But it wasn’t really jealousy, was it, this dull ache in her chest?

No, it probably was. She was a terrible person and a worse friend.

“Enjoy,” Bernie said to her cheerfully, and Natasha flashed her a smile as she left, dropping into the seat opposite James.

“Feeling better?”

He grimaced. “Marginally.” And took a huge bit of hamburger which rather belied that statement, Natasha thought. “Proud of myself.”

“For being a party animal?” The thought made her laugh – the Winter Soldier, terrifying assassin, highly trained elite soldier, out clubbing… she kind of wished she’d seen it.

“I didn’t go crazy and shoot anyone while drunk off my ass,” he said.

For a moment she stared. Then she said, “You dick.”

James laughed out loud. “Come on. It was a possibility.”

“No it wasn’t, or you wouldn’t have gone.”

“Ah. Got me there.”

“I know you,” she said.

He smiled a little, his eyebrows rising, as if he didn’t like the reminder. Natasha could have kicked herself.

“Anyway,” he said, “I think Bernie’s working her way up to asking Steve out.”

“Oh!” Natasha said. Then she said, “Ohhhh,” again. “Oh good. It’ll do him good.” Was she really going to spend the rest of her life jumping to conclusions like this every time he saw him speak to another woman? Pathetic didn’t even begin to cover it.

“I know,” said James. “I’m sick of him and Sharon being a dysfunctional mess at each other.”

“He never talks about it,” said Natasha.

“He doesn’t need to. Steve can write novels with a look.”

“That’s true.”

The companionable silence was almost the worst thing, the ease between them, how comfortable they were with each other, how well they understood one another. If only she could drum up some excuse to avoid him, could justify some awkwardness or… But she never would, she knew that. Terminal lack of willpower. If this ache was the price she paid for his company she would probably keep on paying it until the stars fell out of the sky.

Five hours later Steve texted her a link to one of her least favourite gossip blogs: some asshole had seen James and Wanda out last night and had sold some blurry phone pictures of the two of them playing pool and laughing, beers in their hands. Natasha didn’t even need to read the story to know what it would say. Blah blah blah trouble in paradise blah secret marriage on the rocks blah how dare Barnes talk to other women, wasn’t he from the Forties, Cap would never lower himself to this, had Hydra burnt his morals out of his brain along with his memories blah blah.

If he’d been in the room she would have thrown her phone at his head. All these weeks of smiling sweetly and doing nothing to make people think _better_ of him, and he went out and did _this_ at the earliest opportunity. Mistreated, hah. How about cheated on?

Natasha shut her computer down and tidied her desk with a little more vigour than strictly necessary, biting her lip to keep the curses in. Then she took her sweater off and fixed her hair and put her leather jacket on and examined herself in the mirror critically: yes, that would do.

Down the hall, James was playing Candy Crush on his phone with his feet on his desk.

“The very picture of a modern major general,” Natasha said, leaning against the doorway.

He flipped her off. For some reason that delighted her utterly.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s get dinner.”

He looked up from his phone at last, but no other part of his body moved but his eyes, and that steady grey stare had always seen right through her.

“I’m hungry and I don’t want to go home,” she said. “Come on.”

Now he smiled; it softened his whole face. “Sure. You pick the place.”

Natasha picked a diner near the subway, so they could both get home easily, and made sure they sat in the window. They drank beer and ate chili cheese fries and talked – talked about everything, really: work, Steve, Steve and Bernie, Cooper and Lila and Nate, his own nieces and nephews, the Winter Soldier and the Scarlet Witch’s adventures in bar-hopping. Natasha liked to listen to him talk. He had a knack for telling funny stories, and his voice was warm and pleasant. But the real win of the evening was getting him to laugh. His shoulders loosened and his head fell back when he laughed, all the solemnity and care wiped off his face. She let herself laugh, when she was with him; keeping her masks on when they were alone together was just rude, considering that he saw straight through them, just as she did his.

Beer and good food and laughter; when they left the diner again she fell in with him and hooked her arm through his, pressing close, their steps in time, feeling the smooth contours of metal through their clothes. He’d never hesitated to touch her with his left hand. Sometimes she had had bruises on her hip the next day, little aches she’d treasured. There was someone in that place who loved her, someone who thought she was worth loving…

“I had fun,” she said when they reached the subway platform.

“Me too.” There it was, that sweet wide smile. For a moment they looked at each other in silence, and then he said quietly, “Come here, _lisichka_ ,” and curled his arm around her shoulders, the press of his lips warm on her forehead. Incongruously, she thought, _last time, last kiss_ ; but it did, it felt like a goodbye. Natasha’s hands rested on his sides, feeling his body heat, the lines of muscle, the soft cotton of the shirt he wore. She tipped her head – their noses brushed – his lips were parted, his eyes wide – time seemed to hang suspended all around them, the world gone motionless, the people insubstantial ghosts – and then he looked away, the spell shattered.

“Your train –” James stepped away, his arm falling from her shoulders; the noise of the subway platform pressed back in on her, disorienting. He’d cut his hair, but it was still long enough to tuck behind his ears, brush his cheekbones when it fell forwards over his face, and it was there, it was all there: something aching and regretful and determined. It sent a shock through her, rocked her back on her heels. For a second she thought, _don’t risk it, Romanov_ , but this was no time to start paying attention to paltry things like fear, and when he tried to walk away she tightened her hands on his sides. She was breathless, her chest hollowed out.

“D’you remember Kiev?”

His eyebrows climbed. “You dropped a building on us.”

“Oh! _You_ dropped the building –”

“Lies,” he said, frowning a little, wondering, maybe – hopeful? – and suddenly both his arms were around her, strong and steady. It was like coming home… Natasha pressed close to him, stretching up on her tiptoes; he was still taller than she. Unfair. “Why?”

“You always let me get away with everything.”

“Generally speaking,” he said, “given space and initiative, you got the job done better than anyone else. _Except_ for that time in Kiev when you dropped a building on us.”

Natasha started to laugh. “If I ask you for something now…”

“I’ll give you it.” James was smiling, the lines around his eyes and mouth deep, his breath on her face.

She smiled. The words came to her lips so easily it was a mystery how they had stayed unsaid for so long. “How about everything?”

He grew solemn. “I’m a mess, Tasha.”

“I know _that_. You can’t even decide how you like my hair best.”

“Whaaat?”

She laughed again. “Nothing. Never mind. Come on. If you jump I’ll jump, Jack.”

“Now that movie I’ve seen,” said James. “Possibly Wilson had a point when he said it was unfair of me to make Steve watch it, but –”

Natasha dropped her forehead against his chest and laughed and laughed. His hand cupped the back of her head. He kissed her hair, her temple. This was not feeling like rejection, and there definitely wasn’t any other girl. What an idiot she’d been. She felt sort of bubbly and fizzy, all light and air, no ties to earth at all; only to him.

“I’m terrified,” he said quietly. “You terrify me. The idea of being in a relationship…”

“How dare you,” she said. “We’re married.”

His turn to laugh, helplessly. Her train and at least one other had come and gone; they were leaning against a pillar, putting down roots, apparently; she never wanted to leave.

“Am I the guy?”

She shivered. “Of course.”

He sighed. It heaved through him, and she buried her face in his Henley, smiling. Was that really the trouble, all along? Fear? She couldn’t ever remember seeing him afraid… he would have to get used to ignoring it. She would show him.

“I’m not letting you walk away,” she said. “Ever. I’ll wait. I let you down, and –”

“Don’t ever say that.”

“It’s the truth. If anyone should’ve known you’d pull through, it was me…”

“Don’t talk nonsense. If anyone knew how unlikely it was that I’d pull through, it was you…”

“I love you.” What a relief to say it out loud.

James kissed her temple again, the shell of her ear. “This Friday… wear something nice. I’ll come and pick you up at seven. We’ll have dinner, find a place to dance…”

Natasha drew a long breath: his aftershave, the leather of his jacket, a faint smell of sweat. “All right,” she said. “Seven.”

“Here’s your train. Again.” He stepped back, shooed her towards the doors; she was laughing.

“Seven!”

“I won’t forget.” He was laughing too.

“Kiss me,” she said imperiously.

James caught her hand and raised it to his lips, his stubble prickly against her palm, his mouth very soft. “Good night, tsarina.”

“Sap,” she said.

“Friday at seven,” he promised.

The doors closed between them; she stumbled back a few steps to watch him through the windows as the train began to move, and then he was gone, and all she had was the memory of his smiling face and his fingers around hers. Natasha dropped into a seat and put her head back, sprawling gracelessly across half the carriage, fighting down the most embarrassing giggle and biting her fingers to keep from shouting with triumph.

+++

The next morning the gossip blogs ran pictures of them in the diner: Natasha leaning her chin on her hand, watching Bucky laugh, her smile entranced, enchanting. It was gorgeous. Bucky could look at it forever. The ones from the subway platform were splashed even more prominently across the internet: his arms around her, her smiling face turned up to his, the kiss to her palm through the open train doors. Some asshole paparazzi or enterprising member of the public could lip-read, apparently, because now the whole world knew he’d called her _tsarina_ , and Bucky almost regretted it, until he remembered how she’d blushed.

“You should let me run a background check,” Wanda said when she caught up with him in the lobby.

“You’re so sharp you’ll cut yourself one day if you’re not careful.” He tugged a loose lock of hair reprovingly, just as if she’d been Sarah Jane, and she laughed out loud.

Steve stuck his head into Bucky’s office once to say _I told you so_ , and got a balled-up page of mission report to the face for his pains. Bernie said something about publicity and people wanting to know why he apparently wasn’t living with his wife; Wilson, being a suspicious-minded prick, said nothing but glared a lot, and Barton just nodded at him. Bucky liked Barton. He didn’t interfere with you unless you asked him to, and when he did he took you seriously. Emmy sent a text that just said, _Hmm_ , Sarah Jane sent him a collection of links in an email under the subject line _oh look my brother’s back_ , and Becca sent him a picture of Rikki wearing the – slightly unfortunate-looking, but definitely completed – scarf.

There was a reason Becca was his favourite.

Natasha, he couldn’t help but notice, went out of her way to avoid him. This, it turned out halfway through the morning when she ran into him in the gym, was because she couldn’t look at him without blushing red as her hair – or redder in fact, now that she’d tinted it. Bucky failed very badly at keeping his love-struck grin off his face, which made her throw a boxing glove at him and storm out, and then he had to destroy a few punching bags to keep from laughing with glee like a lunatic for the rest of the day.

+++

Friday at seven. Natasha’s apartment door was probably the most intimidating thing Bucky had ever looked at: Nazi fortresses were easier, Hydra lab tables were easier, the Senate committee who’d given him his official pardon was definitely easier. Afraid to be in any relationship? Sure. Afraid of burdening someone else with his faults and foibles and sleepless nights, afraid of not being good enough, of finding out that he could function perfectly well on his own but would never have that kind of connection with another person again.

Afraid of hurting Natasha specifically… so much so he nearly put the flowers down outside her door and left. _How about everything? Am I the guy? Of course_. Bucky shut his eyes a moment. She loved him, she wanted him, she thought he was worth loving. If he hurt her again… Mistreated. It still made him nauseous, weeks later. But: _I’ll wait_ , she’d said. _I’m not letting you walk away. I love you_. She’d asked him for something, and he’d promised he’d give it to her. Besides, she was perfectly right. He did always let her get away with everything.

Crucially, he never regretted it.

Bucky squared his shoulders and knocked.

A few seconds passed; distinctly he heard her cursing; then the shuffle of bare feet on the floor, and she flung the door open. She was wearing a green so dark it was almost black, her hair pinned into place beautifully, the skirt of the dress flaring around her knees, and she was laughing.

“I can’t find my shoes – wait here.” She pointed at a spot inside the door, and he stepped in, laughing, and watched her vanish back into the apartment. There was a clatter and a noise of cardboard being flung around: shoe boxes, Bucky assumed. A coat rack was right in front of him, a shoulder holster hanging off the end of it; he could see, in the living room, a corner of a bookcase and the back of a couch…

“Wear your Chucks,” he called to her, turning the flowers in his hands and smiling.

“Gotta kiss myself I’m so pretty.” She slid back into the hall on her stocking feet, flourishing a pair of black heels in triumph. “Ta-daaa. God this is embarrassing. You make me such a ditz.”

“I don’t… think that’s the case at all,” said Bucky, keeping his eyes on the top of her head when she propped one hand against the wall and slid her shoes on, one after the other, balancing on one leg and leaning over…

“It is, it really is.” Natasha straightened up and shook her dress out and smoothed her hair and drew a breath. “OK. Hi.” She was looking at him like he was the best and most amazing thing she’d ever seen.

“Hi.” Bucky smiled at her, besotted. “Uh, I brought you…”

She blinked when he held out the bouquet, and for a moment he wondered if it had been a misstep, but she took it and buried her nose in it. “They’re lovely.”

“Heartsease,” he said. At once that blush was back. He adored her.

“Uh, vase. Just – one sec.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Promise?”

“Word of honour, tsarina.”

“ _Never_ call me that again.”

“The tabloids loved it, I’m never calling you anything else.”

“Urgh.” Clank of glass; the sound of a tap running as she filled a vase with water, and the rustle of paper as she took it off the bouquet. “There.”

“I mean that is why we went out that evening,” he added, speaking mostly to the coat rack. “For the tabloids.”

There was a silence in the apartment broken by the sound of her heels as she crossed into the living room and put the vase down on some shelf somewhere. Then Natasha wandered back out into the hall, looking innocent.

“I really don’t know –”

“Oh, don’t lie to me. I know you.” Bucky crossed the space between them; Natasha bit her lip but stood her ground, let him tower over her, cup her face in his hands. “Thank you. For wanting to help.”

Her expression softened, and she dropped her eyes away from his face, chewing on her lip a little. He had an urge to part her lips with his thumb and kiss her. She was wearing some dizzy rose-scented perfume, all golden summer days and warmth.

“You’re welcome,” she said softly, all gentle and vulnerable, and Bucky urged her face up to his with his hands and kissed her, half in a trance, for the first time in, what, ten years? Tiny little gasp; slow and gentle, lingering, loving, nothing more, really, than a brush of their mouths together, over and over, re-learning how soft her lips were, the shape of her smile.

Then her strong hands were gripping him bruising-tight, her sweet hot mouth parting under his, and heat flashed through him, swallowed him up; he groaned against her lips, and she gasped again, surging up, pulling at him, her body pressed tight to his, all sweet lush curves and strength. They stumbled into a piece of furniture, fell, her hot weight in his lap now; it probably would have made Bucky a little crazy to have any woman in his arms again, a soft warm armful of girl to kiss and caress, but this was Natasha, Natasha, Natasha. He was kissing her as if these were their last five minutes on Earth together, and she was clinging to him as if he was about to vanish from under her hands, and when she got the buttons of his waistcoat and shirt open and ran her hands down his chest he caught her tight against him and lifted her up and laid her on her back, slinging his leg over hers, her head pillowed on his forearm, his weight on his elbow by her head.

“Yes,” she said, attacking his belt buckle and fly, “yes, James, please,” and Christ she was wearing stockings, honest to god stockings. He fought with the damn dress until it was safely rucked up around her hips and he could spread his hand over the wide bare stretch of skin between the lace of her stockings and the silky stuff of her panties, the softest warmest most inviting thing he’d ever put his hands on, and his kisses muffled her moans when he stroked the inside of her thigh with his thumb, edging up towards her cunt. Her hot hands were rubbing at him through his underwear, making his hips roll against her, his body tremble. He – they should – he shifted, and his knees slid against the hardwood floor, and suddenly he broke away from her, breathing hard.

Dazed, her eyes hooded, her mouth wet and swollen, a beautiful flush on her cheekbones; Natasha halfways to debauched was a sight that bowled him over completely, and for a few seconds Bucky was breathless. With an effort, he said, “Not here – not gonna take you like an animal on the damn floor.” Too many stairwells in their past, too many concrete corridors and closets and hurried, half-clothed, ungentle fucks. But she just laughed, breathless herself, a warm husky laugh he wasn’t sure he’d ever heard from her before…

“You think I care where you ravish me as long as you do?” She caught his face in her hands. “I love you.”

“God.” Bucky closed his eyes and dropped his head. Their noses brushed, his forehead rested against hers. “I love you.” He hadn’t said it on the subway platform and he didn’t know why: it made a shiver run through her whole body, made her smile soften and her eyes light up and her whole body relax, inviting, welcoming.

“Just stay with me,” she said. “Just promise you’ll stay with me.”

He kissed the corner of her mouth, chuckling. “Till death do us –”

“Oh!” She dug her hands into his sides, and he rolled off, laughing helplessly, sprawling out across her living room floor on his back. Natasha climbed on top of him at once, and what a view _that_ was. 

“Be polite if you cancelled our dinner reservations,” she said wickedly.

“Not a chance. I wanna take you out.”

She flexed her fingers on his chest threateningly. “Barnes, if you don’t finish what you started…”

“Oh no, I’ll finish.” Bucky sat up, lifting her with his left arm around her hips, and when she caught hold of his shoulders he slid his right hand between her thighs and stroked her through her panties. Her mouth fell open, soundless delight. She was so soft, he could feel it through the fabric, the way she parted for him when he ran a single fingertip over her from her asshole to her clit. “I’ll finish. Gonna take care of you just right, just here. Straighten you up after and take you out like I promised and all of New York’ll take pictures of us and not even know you came apart for me like this, just here, just like this.”

He hooked his fingers in her panties, pulled them down and to the side. Natasha was slick and swollen and so hot it made him shudder; her body trembled, her knees spread wide around his thighs, and Bucky closed his eyes against the look on her face and resolutely ignored his erection as he caressed her, as he tucked his fingers inside her and stroked her, feeling her flutter around him, so soft and hot. He was kissing along her throat, her jaw. “There sweetheart, trust me, I have you. I’ll always have you. Smell so good, you’re so hot, so soft… so greedy,” he added when she rocked her hips against his hand, and a laugh stuttered out of her. “You’re everything in the damn world that I have ever wanted, _lisichka_. Everything.” Natasha sobbed when he found her swollen little clit, his knuckles rubbing against the wet fabric of her panties as he twisted his hand a little and rubbed his thumb over it, wide soft circles that didn’t do much for her, tighter quicker ones that did. So that was how she liked it… “You know the thing that’s really been haunting me? I don’t remember what you look like when you come. Is it rude of me to ask you to demonstrate as often as possible?”

She laughed, a strangled, choked little noise, her thighs tense, her body shivering; she pressed down against him and whimpered when he pulled his fingers back, denying her the pressure and the friction that she wanted. “James. _James_.”

“My love,” he said harshly, fighting the urge to put her on her back again and spread her legs and fuck her till she cried for him. “My Natalya.”

“Make me come,” she said, leaning forwards so her hair was in his face and her mouth was by his ear. “Make me come, Soldier. I want that again, want your arms around me when I come apart, how safe I always am with you. And then I want to hold you down after and blow you, want your cock in my mouth, want to still taste you while we’re sitting in that restaurant waiting for our food…”

He turned his head and kissed her punishingly, bit lightly on her lower lip, kissed her smiling hot mouth over and over. When he sucked on her tongue a little and pressed down firmly on her clit she tipped over, shaking, gasping; her back arched beautifully, pulling back from him, and she probably would have fallen if he hadn’t been holding her. No wipe would ever take the memory of her face from him again; it was burned into him, indelible. It was a miracle he hadn’t come in his pants just at the sight of her.

“There. There.” He kissed her lax lovely mouth, her chin, her jaw. “I love you.”

“Mmm. Oh god.” Natasha scratched her fingers through his hair, humming low in her throat, and when Bucky sighed and arched into it she wriggled in his lap, rubbing luxuriously against his hard cock, mouthing kisses along the underside of his jaw. “I want you to know that I didn’t mean for this to happen at _all_.” But she sounded so lazily self-satisfied that it was impossible to believe her.

“Uh-huh.”

“I _didn’t_.” She pouted.

Bucky kissed her again, his hands on her back. “Maybe I should cancel that reservation.”

“No, no, you wanted to torture yourself, I’m happy to help.” Natasha kissed the tip of his nose, grinning. “Lie back and let me blow you, darling.” She shoved at him as he laughed, sending him over backwards, and he let his arms fall to their sides when she started crawling backwards down his body, trailing kisses down his neck, his sternum, his chest, her hair brushing his skin; Bucky shuddered convulsively, his whole body tight with pleasure, his breathing quick.

“Washington, Adams, Jefferson. Tasha, I’m gonna embarrass myself.”

“Never with me,” she promised, pulling his underwear down; being a sadist, she let the fabric rub along his cock, and Bucky’s hips jolted up in search of friction, dizzy with need, then, then, oh god her mouth was hot and wet and soft and – and – pleasure blanked his mind; for a few endless seconds he was nothing but physical sensation, utterly hers.

“Fuck,” he said, gasping. “Oh god. Nat…” She petted his chest, scritching her fingers through the hair there; she’d swallowed him down, and she was suckling gently at his softening cock, sending convulsive little aftershocks through him that hurt as he grew oversensitive. “Stop, sweetheart, s’too much.”

“Presidents?” she said, laughing. “Really?”

“Don’t remember any baseball stats,” he admitted, and wrapped his arms around her when she crawled back up to kiss him. “Oh wow.” He’d melted into the floor, boneless and languid and never moving again. Natasha snuggled against his left side, kissing and kissing him; her mouth was bitter with the taste of his come, which almost got him up again. Almost. “Think I’m dead.”

“I will cancel the reservations,” she decided.

“Coffee,” Bucky said. “Then I’m good.”

“Darling, you were very good.” She hummed contentedly. “I love your hands…”

Bucky kissed her again, laughing. “They’re yours. All of me is yours.”

“I know,” Natasha said softly.

+++

James slept like the dead after sex, apparently. Natasha woke as early as she always did, tucked deliciously against his side, and had to giggle when he absolutely would not be roused, not by good morning kisses or her hands stroking his back or whispered _I love you_ s, and eventually she gave it up as a bad job and went to get coffee, grinning at her reflection in the microwave door and humming to herself, rather tunelessly. Her hair was a bird’s nest, her mouth swollen, her neck marked with stubble-burn and hickeys, her breasts sore and sensitive; her thighs ached too. It had been so long and he was so big and they’d fucked so much that she was walking funny. Talk about throwing yourself in at the deep end. Oh god, what had she done – now the tabloids really would be all over them – and everyone would talk, all their friends would want to know things, and would he expect her to meet his sisters, and – and –

And James Barnes was in her bed, and he’d told her he loved her, and now that the conscious knowledge had come to her Natasha was terrified of it, but the fact was, she was happy. Her hands were shaking.

“Well,” she said to the coffee machine. “I’ve done it now.” _Baby girl, I’ve known you for years… I love you… you get the job done better than anyone else_. His hand on hers in the restaurant last night, stroking the lines of her palm; his body heat against her on the walk back here, his mouth on her breasts, his hot skin on hers, the giddy sense of power when he came apart in her arms, all his vulnerabilities hers to protect. What had it cost him, to come to her after everything he’d been through? What had it cost her to ask him. Oh god, he could destroy her with a couple of words, now. But that was what trust was: giving someone that power and having faith they wouldn’t use it.

Natasha wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands. No going back. Nothing to go back to. “I’ve made my bed, and he’s in it.” She sniggered, wetly. Who knew it was possible to be this afraid and this happy at the same time? Or this afraid of being happy, possibly. She took their coffee mugs and went back to the bedroom, sighing to herself, needing his arms around her. He hadn’t moved an inch. Natasha put a mug down on the table at his side of the bed and then went back around to hers and climbed under the covers; what woke him up, apparently, was her cold feet against his shins. That made her laugh.

“Urgh.” James raised his head off the pillows, blinking at her blearily. “What.”

“Good morning, sunshine,” Natasha said cheerily. “It’s the first day of the rest of our lives. Be a _little_ romantic, I dare you.”

“My beautiful love,” he said. “My heart, my joy. Is that coffee?”

Natasha pointed at the other bedside table, laughing, and when he’d sat up against the pillows she snuggled against him, her head under his chin. They drank coffee in silence and watched the sunlight through the crack in her drapes.

“You OK?” James asked at last, his breath stirring her hair.

Natasha kissed his warm chest. “Yes.”

+++

They’d actually made it out of bed and halfway through breakfast when Natasha made the mistake of checking her phone and finding a backlog of alerts.

“Oh god,” she said. “Oh my god. It’s her again.”

James put his cutlery down with a faintly suspicious look. “Her?”

“The sex therapist woman. Oh god. We have massive intimacy issues and our body language makes it clear we don’t know how to interact with each other –”

“Tasha, what the hell.”

“And we should totally be taking counselling sessions, presumably with her, to figure out how to touch each other again.”

“I made you come _five times_ last night.”

“Four.”

“Counting the living room.”

“Oh yes, then five. Ahhh, here it is, I’ve got terrible hang-ups about your arm. No you have. No I have. No Hitler has. Does our rekindled love mean that we’ve abandoned Steve?” She put the phone down and fixed him with her most earnestly worried look, and James laughed so much he nearly cried. Natasha stole forkfuls of his scrambled eggs and waited for him to calm down, grinning.

“Terrible hang-ups about my arm,” he said, and flexed his left hand thoughtfully.

Natasha swallowed hard. “Terrible hang-ups,” she said.

“Such as?”

“I can’t touch it, you don’t want to touch me with it, there’s a spectrum.”

James licked his lips, and suddenly she started to wonder if she was maybe playing with fire here, a little. Last night had been tender and urgent and passionate; imagine if she let it all go and let him do everything and –

“You tell me not to touch you with it and I won’t.” His eyes glittered. “I don’t need either hand to make you scream for me.”

Natasha bit her lip. “Eat your eggs.”

“Is that all?”

“ _James_.”

“So it isn’t all…” He was laughing, and Natasha was squirming a little, just the wondering making her hot and bothered. This teasing was new, and god it was so hot that he was so _confident_ about it, like there was no question of how good he was, just the way he was in the field. Now there was a thought that didn’t help in the least. She dropped her fork, annoyed.

“No hands at all?” Unlikely. God, his fingers in her yesterday, the touch of his thumb on her clit, his strength and his restraint; he hadn’t even taken her underwear off. The kitchen – the world – had shrunk to the space between them, and his eyes and his slow wide smile had her hypnotised.

James licked his lips. “Push your chair back and spread your legs.”

“Now?” She was aching for him, and he looked like he knew it; looked like he wanted her just as badly.

“Now. Push your chair back and spread your legs. Scoot forwards so your ass is on the edge.”

“No hands,” she reminded him, suiting actions to orders with shaky limbs.

“I promise.” And he went to his knees in front of her chair with his hands folded at the small of his back and nuzzled at her cunt through the folds of her nightdress.

“You’re lucky I’m not wearing underwear.” Natasha couldn’t take her eyes off the top of his head, the messy, unwashed hair.

“Eh.” He didn’t sound worried. “Make you come through that, too.”

If she didn’t laugh she’d say something horribly embarrassing like _oh god now never stop_. “You arrogant little –”

“Prick?” he murmured; he nudged the nightdress up with his nose and closed his eyes and settled his mouth against her cunt. His stubble scratched her inner thighs deliciously, and his shoulders held her knees apart, and she’d never, ever, _ever_ seen a more beautiful view. “Didn’t get around to this last night. Dream about the way you taste…” When he licked her her head fell back against the back of the chair, and Natasha closed her eyes, sighing out a long low breath, and gave herself up to it.

It turned out all that swagger was _entirely_ justified.

+++

The subway ride to HQ on Monday morning was a perfect walk of shame. James didn’t seem to notice, or care, that he was wearing a perfect three-piece suit and a crisply ironed shirt but hadn’t shaved in three days – he’d taken one look at her razors and shaken his head very very firmly – but Natasha felt like everyone was looking at them. It was probably ridiculous. And it certainly didn’t, or shouldn’t, matter compared to the weight of his arm across her shoulders and the heat of him next to her, but there it was. It was standing room only at this hour, and she put her arms around his waist and tucked her head under his chin; he was holding on to the bar above his head, and they swayed back and forth with the movement of the train, not even needing to speak. It should have been intimate, but mostly she just felt exposed.

It was true now. That was what the problem was. She’d made it true, and as a consequence the whole world knew the details of her love life, of her most private and cherished – well of course not literally, not the actual details. All the countless articles and blog posts were still fictitious, still invented. But the gist of them was true.

Then he moved his head a little, and brushed a kiss over her hair, and when she looked up he was smiling at her, and none of it mattered after all. Natasha stretched up on her tiptoes to kiss him. _If you got it flaunt it_ , she thought, grinning against his mouth: James Barnes in a three piece suit Monday morning walk of shame because of her, and today and tomorrow and the next day and the rest of the future as far as she could see it she would spend her nights in his arms, and her days – but nothing would really change about her days, she supposed.

What a pair of idiots they were.

+++

On Tuesday their relationship was as up front and centre as it ever was, but this time Steve was being dragged through the muck: underneath a full-page if blurry photograph of Natasha curled in Bucky’s lap in his desk chair and making out with him in the middle of the afternoon (she’d walked in on him shaving with his spare razor in the little sink in the corner, and had assured him earnestly that someone needed to check and make sure he hadn’t missed a spot, and, well.), the Bugle ran an accusatory headline demanding to know what Captain America thought he was doing by allowing this sort of unprofessional behaviour during working hours.

Steve took one look at it, rolled up the paper, and made to whack Bucky with it the way their mothers might have gone after them with a kitchen spoon for getting in trouble.

“You did that _on purpose_ ,” he said, dodging the half-hearted punch Bucky threw back at him and scrambling over the desk to try and strangle him.

“You asshole, you wanna be more worried about the lines of sight from these fucking windows,” said Bucky, and caught him in a headlock, and they toppled against the office door and out into the corridor cursing at each other and yelling, and ended up in a heap on the floor, laughing like idiots. God it was good to have this back...

Somebody's heels snapped against the floor near his head; Bucky looked up. “Wow, I hope this never gets to the tabloids,” Natasha said sweetly, bending over them, and tossed her phone from hand to hand with a speculative look.

“You _harpy_ ,” said Bucky.

“ _Gimme it_ ,” said Steve.

“She’s got really ticklish elbows,” said Bucky, and Natasha took off with an outraged yell. She was laughing too much to get very far, and the next day the tabloids were reduced to wondering whether or not Bucky’s left arm vibrated, and if he minded that Natasha changed her hair so often, and was it _difficult_ for him to be married to a Modern 21 st Century Woman, what with having been raised in the Stone Age, apparently, and really there was just no winning with these people, none at all.

 

 

 

 


End file.
